"It is to love the Lord Jesus Christ with a love that places his honor and his cause and his commands first, and all else secondary."
"Who does it?"
"He knows. Perhaps there are many. Why are not you one?"
He dropped his eyes now, but answered lightly:
"Hard to tell. I have never given the matter sufficiently serious thought to be able to witness in the case."
"But is that reply worthy of a reasoning being? Won't you be frank about the matter, Mr. Ansted? I don't mean to preach, and I did not intend to be offensively personal. I was thinking this afternoon how strange it was that so many well-educated, reasoning young men left this subject outside, and were apparently indifferent to it, though they professed to believe in the story of the Bible; and I wondered why it was: what process of reasoning brought them to such a position. Will you tell me about it? How do young men, who are intelligent, who accept the Bible as a standard of morals by which the world ought to be governed, who respect the church and think it ought to be supported, reason about their individual positions as outsiders? They do not stand outside of political questions where they have a settled opinion; why do they in this?"
"I don't know," he answered at last. "The majority of them, perhaps, never give it a thought; with others the claims which the church makes are too squarely in contact with pre-arranged plans of life; and none of them more than half believe in religion as exhibited in the every-day lives about them."
"Have you given me your reason for being outside, Mr. Ansted?"